Lots of people have compared them to the Barclays, so let’s take a look at the length of stay between the two families. The Barclays were first introduced in Album 2 (1988) and left in Album 31 (1997), a span of 9 years. Though they had some returns (Jimmy and Mr. Barclay were featured in Album 42), this was the last time the whole family was in an episode.

Of the four voice actors, two were replaced. Mr. and Mrs. Barclay were replaced with new voice actors in 1988 after only one two-part episode.

Next we have the Parkers. They were introduced in Album 51 (2010), and still remain part of Odyssey in Album 66 (2019), which is a span of 9 years.

Of the 5 characters, 4 of them have had their voice actor replaced at least once.

Mr Parker:Marc Evan Jackson (2010-2017)Eddie Frierson (2018-2019)

Mrs. Parker:Amanda Troop (2010-2019)

Olivia:Hope Levy (2010) - While this was only a year, she did act in 11 episodes over 2 albumsKelly Stables (2011-2019)

This means that for 5 family members, we have had a total of 11 voice actors. A bit excessive, no?

Now, I don’t fault Odyssey for the fact that these voice actors had to leave. After all, with such a demanding time for voice acting, I’m sure it’s hard to get people and keep them, and when you’re only recording episodes twice a year, voices change and people may have contracts with movies or other tv shows:Marc Evan Jackson just recently appeared in the new Jumanji movie, and I’m sure his work on 10 tv shows and movies in 2018 alone has impacted part of Focus’ decision to replace him.

Hope Levy was working on 7 projects in 2011, so I’m sure she was too busy to do AIO then as well.

Zach Callison has been in Steven Universe since 2013 (In which he plays a boy who never grows old - so I don’t buy Focus’ excuse that his voice had changed too much when they replaced him in 2014) He has also been in 6 projects in 2018 alone.

Yet, it seems almost flippant the way Focus has switched voice actors so so many times for these characters especially, when over the years other characters have phased out due to actor’s job conflicts or deaths. While it’s sad that many of them never got a real “goodbye”, I like that it gives us the thought that they are still somewhere, maybe in Odyssey, and they could pop back into Whit’s end. But it’s also realistic - over the 6 years I’ve been here, friends have come and gone. I only still friends with a handful of people I met during that first year - the rest have moved on. It’s life.

So what do I want Focus to do? I have two suggestions.

First, say goodbye to the Parkers. They’ve had their run. It’s time to be done. They have been here for the same length of time as the Barclays, who were the longest running family in Odyssey (The Washingtons were only around for 5 years).

Secondly, Focus should see about creating some sort of contract with these actors so that they will do a certain number of episodes, like actors do for other movie series. (I’m thinking of Marvel specifically here). That way they can safely write characters into episodes without worrying if the actor will be available or not. This way they could also plan ahead if someone needed to leave - and we could have a proper goodbye episode - or a goodbye for now.

Additionally, I think Focus should rethink the circumstances under which they replace voice actors - I think the instances should be few and far between. Maybe if someone has only been in one or two episodes, they could replace the actor. Another circumstance that makes sense is for beloved characters (like Mr. Whittaker, Connie, & Eugene), but even then I’m not sold on flat out replacing them. For a show to have existed for as long as AIO has, (and I hope it will continue to exist longer), they need to deeply consider the direction in which the show is going. Mr. Whittaker is getting old now - is he immortal? Is he going to live forever? What about when Andre Stojka steps down? Are they going to replace the voice actor for the character of Mr. Whittaker a fourth time?

_________________

~Queen Belle of Altanovia, Knight of Montreal & Order of Aristotle, Benevolent Dictator, Catspaw of the SS, & Dan's couch troll~~"I’ve always found you to be a good person to disagree with." - Eleventh Doctor~

Bless you for making this. I've thought the same for awhile. Honestly, they could keep the Parkers on if they put them through something hard to create character development and then make the kids actually get older. I suggest they kill off Olivia. As terrible as it sounds, it would actually solve a lot of problems. Matthew and Camilla would grow closer to each other and their parents, and we could even get some good Zoe and Jay stuff if she turned to him for comfort.

_________________"Let me get this straight. I bet all those non-friends of yours try to embarrass you about your love for that stuff, right? So, you almost feel like you have to hide your treasures away and can only take them out in secret on rainy days when your mom goes to the store to get more liver and nobody is around to berate your sensitive spirit. Is that what you’re saying?" -Jay Smouse

Thank you! This is so true the packers have had there chance and some interesting episode 's but it's time to say good bye. The only thing I might miss is the Jones and Parker agency other then that I think many of us are ready to say goodbye.

Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 2:46 pmPosts: 324Location: Africa (do do do do do do do)Gender:

I would totally be alright with it if they popped up maybe once or twice an album or so but no, this has officially become 'The Parker show'. I mean they aren't even that great tbh. Jones and Parker would be alright if they would just get on with the morrie arch.This is kinda unrelated, but why put so much focus on the Parkers and yet let a really unique family like the Mulligans go to waste? I do kinda get it though, I mean they were doing so many other things at the time of the Mulligans.

_________________*Finger guns aggressively*

Last edited by MonkeyDude on Mon Nov 12, 2018 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This is looong. It's late and I'm tired and can't devote the mental energy to make it shorter. Please try to muddle through somehow!

Regarding Zach Callison, I can't speak for Steven Universe's casting decisions, but the change is something that you can hear with your ears:Listening to these clips (1. Matthew's debut, 2. GRC, about the midpoint of Zach's stay, 3. "Push the Red Button", which is probably his last clear pre-change episode, 4. his first post-changing episode, and 5. his next-to-last episode), I think we hear that he starts out sounding a bit younger, reaches his usual sound not too long after that, and stays similar up until he starts to pick up a certain adolescent edge in "Big Top". By the last clip, his voice has clearly changed significantly. He still sounds like a youth, but he doesn't sound late 10 or 11-ish, which, given that the chronology has passed about two to three years from album 51 to now*, would be around the age Matthew is supposed to be in that episode.

* In "Green Ring Conspiracy", two and a half-ish (considering that album 54 was originally planned to be before GRC) albums after 51, Buck is "14". At the present he's about 16. Matthew was listed as being "10" on AIOWiki in 2010, and we can assume that he's roughly 12 or 13 now.)

Anyway, I think their current casting strategy mostly made sense for the two goals they seem to have been aiming at, first, of portraying the development of characters over a particularly short timespan, and second, putting a few characters in lots of episodes. I'll grant these goals were not the same as their goals in previous eras of Odyssey, but how fast-paced they want the show's chronology to be is an executive decision, and I don't know that I'd say recasting is objectively bad just based on the fact that it's different from how they most often (not always, as I mentioned in a previous topic on this subject) used to do it.

The main question for me is whether or not the show's artistic integrity was maintained during this process. In that light it doesn't look quite as good on the surface, but if we look at it more closely I think it's perhaps not so bad as that. Gunnar wasn't a great voice match with Zach (although he did sound more like him after "Ties that Bind"), but Justin's Matthew is a lot harder to distinguish from the original and is probably about as good a match as anyone could expect to get. I don't think anyone's ever had any complaints with Kelly Stables' performance, which incidentally also helped alleviate the concerns at that time that the girls sounded alike. Finally, each actress for Camilla have tended to sound very similar to each other, with a pleasing sort of 'aging' effect. Four hits out of five isn't a bad rate for voice replacements for the kid roles.

The point where I think everyone here could agree they went too far in recasting is in "Sandwich Initiative". David Parker is an established adult character, and arguably even a major one: by AIOWiki's definition, he fits, having been in 20+ episodes, and at 24 (not counting Sandwich Initiative), actually more than June Kendall or Mitch. But that being the case, he isn't considered a key or core part of the show. Considering that the voice match isn't very similar and in my opinion loses a lot of the 'feel' of the role, I'd be satisfied if it was like "Suspicious Finds" Bart Rathbone in album 50: necessary to play the part in a script that was written before the actor became unavailable, but not someone they plan to keep portraying him in the long run.

Given all that, I actually think it's better to recast kid characters than established adult characters; firstly no kid has been around as long as Whit, Connie or Eugene, so that gives us less time to get used to them as they are. But most importantly, that way there's good cause for 'suspension of disbelief'. If they're kids, we can plausibly expect their voices and nuances are going to evolve as they age... whereas there's no real-world reason for an adult character to suddenly sound completely different out of the blue.

All that said, I agree it is time to begin to transition away from the Parker era, with a caveat. I wouldn't have it be abrupt, but rather a slow fade which would keep at least some Parkers around in some episodes for a few more years (yes, breaking the Barclays' record in the process). This seems to fit the situation with the cast: They *just* got Ms. Stewart and I highly doubt they're going to get a young lady into a substantial role and then get rid of that part right afterward, especially when she sounds so good in it. Judging by the history here, statistically speaking, if any of the Parker kids are likely to go it's Matthew, since AIO really seems to have something against keeping boys around after they grow up , and Justin's been on the show long enough that his part phasing out needn't be a disappointment to him. I'd retire David (finding other roles for Mr. Frierson to play). Finally, since Amanda Troop (who plays Eva Parker) seems to be a regular, there's still room for her as long as there's any active Parker kid characters running around, and you could make a non-family episode or two featuring her (in her job as a nurse, for instance).

PB's idea is definitely interesting. An obvious downside is that then you have to find another good role for Kelly Stables, who is a core part of the team. Besides that, though, I'm not sure that the death of a major kid character is something that AIO would commit to. For one thing, doing something like that would pretty well tie the writers' hands as far as the direction of the series for the next few years. For another thing, the show already felt unusually melancholy over things like the Straussberg family saga or Eugene and Katrina's parenting status, and this would obviously be a lot more serious than that. I maybe could see it on "Down Gilead Lane", which is a more realistic, darker and 'grittier' world, but I think I'd struggle to square it with my understanding of Odyssey, and I'm practically an adult, a lot older and more used to this kind of thing than the show's target audience who would be listening and reacting to it.

If you want the 'family angst' angle with slightly lower stakes, you could have Mr. Parker pass, although I'm not sure that clicks considering that they just got a new actor for him -- retiring the part and actually killing the character are two very different things.

Regarding guaranteed contract lengths, I think that's probably a good idea, if they can manage it.

Incidentally, since the Washingtons were brought up, I would love to see Mr. Lawrence around in even in a semi-regular or fringe role. Hearing him in "The Toy" made me realize how much I missed hearing from him. (Also, since he is the man over at Whit's End Connellsville, if you want to do anything with that part of continuity, you have to have him.)

3. This show is not meant for you guys. Or to say that better the writers aren't saying to themselves "What would the 14-25 year olds at the SS want to see?" Let's face it, we all are those overgrown kids on the carousel saying in denial "This is still FUN!" When it truly isn't. And there are those people going "Um, can these people just get off this ride? It's kinda weird?"

But this show is meant for kids from like ages 5-12. No kid goes "I rly relate to this 60 year old man and 27 year old single woman." They can relate, but they will relate more to kids their age. So people like us are just gonna have to deal with what we get.

4. Suggesting to kill off a parker would be emotionally scarring. Honestly, I don't think I could handle that. Imagine a kid hearing that? Mrs. Kendall was already hard. But she is older and has he life figured out. But its scary for a kid. And no, it wouldn't be like the other deaths. Not like Donna's friend or like others. We barely, if not at all, knew them. We have bee hearing the parkers for NINE YEARS! These kids have been growing up with these characters. I would not stand for this.

5. As cool as it would be to have an old family come back, it just would be weird. Characters have moved on. An appearance or two is fine, but kids coming back grown up would be a bit odd.

6. Mrs. Parker, do I need to say more. When she is talking to Buddy, it was one of the best scenes I have heard. If we lost Mrs. Parker, I would be disappointed in the show. Mr. Parker, although his voice changed, is still Mr. Parker. Yes, he is not quite the same, but he is still a valued character.

But basically, in conclusion, I would not stand for losing the Parkers. Nine years is a freckle on the face of time (Copyright).

_________________“We all change. When you think about it, we’re all different people, all through our lives. And that’s okay, that’s good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.” - Matt Smith

Actually, Odyssey is a family show. Not a kid's show. The age suggestion is there so that adults don't go into it expecting something only for adults. On Amazon, Album 63 is ranked as most popular in Teen and Young Adult Christian Fiction. And even if we're going to label it as a kid's show, Odyssey clearly strives for excellence, due to its audience's age range, so it's not unreasonable to expect excellence and consistency from them. Odyssey is aware of their older listeners and doesn't ignore us. Your example is flawed. Adults riding a carousel takes away the opportunity for kids to ride, while listening to and critiquing a show geared towards a younger audience, doesn't take anything away from anyone. It actually expands the fandom and gives feedback. Honestly the fact that we haven't had a long-standing young character die on the show makes me want it more. We haven't had that particular sting. Now, emotionally scarring might be a bit overdramatic. Things like this are why we have parental warnings. And I would say we've had more emotionally intense things happen than a well-known character death. But that's just my opinion. You might be the only one that doesn't think the Washingtons should come back. I think it would work only since they'd be different ages. If we brought them back and they were all like 12, that would be different. But if Kelly came back and she was Buck's age? I think it'd work nicely.One good minor character does not justify keeping four messy characters, especially if said minor character isn't necessary.Incorrect. Nine years is a head and shoulders of Odyssey time. Nine years is one-third of how long Odyssey has been running.

_________________"Let me get this straight. I bet all those non-friends of yours try to embarrass you about your love for that stuff, right? So, you almost feel like you have to hide your treasures away and can only take them out in secret on rainy days when your mom goes to the store to get more liver and nobody is around to berate your sensitive spirit. Is that what you’re saying?" -Jay Smouse

Setting aside the claim that certain characters are 'messy', which is an opinion and not an objective fact, I think an important unstated assumption behind a lot of the arguments here is that another family shouldn't be considered 'key' characters in the show. After all, Whit, Connie and Eugene have all been on the show for close to its full run of 30 years, but nobody complains that we've seen too much of Connie and that it's time to get rid of her and move on to new blood.

But here's something that most people don't think about: the longest-running family in Odyssey isn't the Barclays, or the Parkers either. It's actually the Whittakers, with the Kendalls coming second. During that time, we've seen Connie age from being 15 to about 28 or 29, given Jules' current age and the approximate date of birth that we can project for her based on Bill's marriages. Monty has aged in an analogous way. So, when someone say that they don't want a family to stick around more than nine years, what they mean is that they don't want another family to be promoted to a 'key' permanent role in the show, like the Whittakers or Kendalls, versus a more minor 'core' role analogous to the Barclays, Washingtons or Straussbergs. (That said, the writers have still stealthily integrated two more families and family dynamics into the show over the years, with the Meltsners and Bassetts.)

As far as whether the Parkers should be ranked as key versus core characters, I don't think that status is something that you can objectively say is good or bad. It just depends on the direction the writers want to take the show. People are upset because they expected the Parkers to be around for a while and then disappear, something that hasn't happened and doesn't look like it's going to any time soon. But we shouldn't persuade ourselves into thinking that "no other family has stayed this long" when the facts don't bear that out.

Regarding the death concept, I honestly can't think of anything on the show that has been more intense than a well-known character dying. Listing off a few examples... in Mortal Coil, Whit almost dies but doesn't. In Greater Love, Recollections, Karen, A Touch of Healing, and Never for Nothing, minor characters die, some onscreen, some offscreen. In Novacom, a one-shot character dies violently, Armitage Shanks, a minor character, dies non-violently but from malice, and Mitch, who was a new character who had become a regular, apparently dies violently, but later turns out to be fine. In Life Expectancy, a regular character dies offscreen. In Gone, Whit leaves, but doesn't die. In Clara, Clara, a one-shot character, leaves but doesn't die, and a couple of minutes later we have Whit tell us the story has a happy ending. In Another Chance, Richard Maxwell almost dies violently, but doesn't. In Final Conflict, the villain dies, violently, on-screen. Given from these examples, we can see that: 1. all things being equal kids dying are more memorable, 2. that dying is more intense than almost dying and almost dying is more so than just leaving, 3. that the more major the character, the more impactful it is, 4. that the death or near-death happening on-screen is far more impactful than it happening off-screen, and 5. that if it's a violent death, it's correspondingly more intense. So, based on these examples, if a major kid character died in an violent accident on-screen, it seems reasonable to expect it to be the most emotionally intense moment in the show's history.

Incidentally, we actually have something of a prototype of this. In "No Boundaries", David Straussberg dies, violently, in an accident that happened onscreen, and he was a regular (if not major) kid character. That was intense, and the reason why it isn't as memorable as the others is because we know it didn't really happen and thus it had no lasting effect on the show. But if the episode was recut to leave out the very relevant detail that it was a Room of Consequence adventure, I think you have the #1 most intense scene in AIO right there, and any of the Parker kids have played a bigger role now than David had at that point. I don't know about "emotionally scarring", but I don't know kids well. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that in any case it would be a very dark turn of the plot.

_________________A classic never goes out of style.

Last edited by Bob on Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@Bob Yeah, I don't agree with killing off the Parker's, and honestly they can leave, I do like Olivia a good amount in 57-60 and in The Good in People, Matthew was incredible is that Zach era and is pretty good now, and Camilla is eh. She has good episodes (Your Servant Is Listening, Rewinding the Big Picture) and some bad episodes ( Perfect Testimony, Walter's Flying Bus, maybe For the Birds?) So if they got rid of one Parker kid I would be fine with Camilla leaving the show, but like how they phased out Robyn; just drop her. @TheDoctor The Washingtons coming back would be awesome because of how great they were and we can see Kelly as a Christian, see how Marvin and Tamika interact with Whit as teens, and more Whit's End Connelsville.

_________________I'm Monty Whittaker's greatest fan. member of the K.R.E

Okay, it's reasonable to say that it would be potentially the most intense tragedy Odyssey's done. But I never said anything about the accident happening "on screen." Granted, it might be better if it did, but I can definitely see how that would be painful for the younger audience members. The other thing that might make it better is that Olivia isn't a very well loved character. It doesn't seem like there are any avid Olivia fans out there that would be heartbroken if she left. Oh, and about the family thing, it's not so much that a family has been on for a long time, but that nothing very significant has happened to them. The kids haven't even really gotten older. The Whittakers and the Kendalls go through extensive growth and character development, so they are continually loved for new reasons.

_________________"Let me get this straight. I bet all those non-friends of yours try to embarrass you about your love for that stuff, right? So, you almost feel like you have to hide your treasures away and can only take them out in secret on rainy days when your mom goes to the store to get more liver and nobody is around to berate your sensitive spirit. Is that what you’re saying?" -Jay Smouse

Setting aside the claim that certain characters are 'messy', which is an opinion and not an objective fact, I think an important unstated assumption behind a lot of the arguments here is that another family shouldn't be considered 'key' characters in the show. After all, Whit, Connie and Eugene have all been on the show for close to its full run of 30 years, but nobody complains that we've seen too much of Connie and that it's time to get rid of her and move on to new blood.

But here's something that most people don't think about: the longest-running family in Odyssey isn't the Barclays, or the Parkers either. It's actually the Whittakers, with the Kendalls coming second. During that time, we've seen Connie age from being 15 to about 28 or 29, given Jules' current age and the approximate date of birth that we can project for her based on Bill's marriages. Monty has aged in an analogous way. So, when someone say that they don't want a family to stick around more than nine years, what they mean is that they don't want another family to be promoted to a 'key' permanent role in the show, like the Whittakers or Kendalls, versus a more minor 'core' role analogous to the Barclays, Washingtons or Straussbergs. (That said, the writers have still stealthily integrated two more families and family dynamics into the show over the years, with the Meltsners and Bassetts.)

As far as whether the Parkers should be ranked as key versus core characters, I don't think that status is something that you can objectively say is good or bad. It just depends on the direction the writers want to take the show. People are upset because they expected the Parkers to be around for a while and then disappear, something that hasn't happened and doesn't look like it's going to any time soon. But we shouldn't persuade ourselves into thinking that "no other family has stayed this long" when the facts don't bear that out.

Regarding the death concept, I honestly can't think of anything on the show that has been more intense than a well-known character dying. Listing off a few examples... in Mortal Coil, Whit almost dies but doesn't. In Greater Love, Recollections, Karen, A Touch of Healing, and Never for Nothing, minor characters die, some onscreen, some offscreen. In Novacom, a one-shot character dies violently, Armitage Shanks, a minor character, dies non-violently but from malice, and Mitch, who was a new character who had become a regular, apparently dies violently, but later turns out to be fine. In Life Expectancy, a regular character dies offscreen. In Gone, Whit leaves, but doesn't die. In Clara, Clara, a one-shot character, leaves but doesn't die, and a couple of minutes later we have Whit tell us the story has a happy ending. In Another Chance, Richard Maxwell almost dies violently, but doesn't. In Final Conflict, the villain dies, violently, on-screen. Given from these examples, we can see that: 1. all things being equal kids dying are more memorable, 2. that dying is more intense than almost dying and almost dying is more so than just leaving, 3. that the more major the character, the more impactful it is, 4. that the death or near-death happening on-screen is far more impactful than it happening off-screen, and 5. that if it's a violent death, it's correspondingly more intense. So, based on these examples, if a major kid character died in an violent accident on-screen, it seems reasonable to expect it to be the most emotionally intense moment in the show's history.

Incidentally, we actually have something of a prototype of this. In "No Boundaries", David Straussberg dies, violently, in an accident that happened onscreen, and he was a regular (if not major) kid character. That was intense, and the reason why it isn't as memorable as the others is because we know it didn't really happen and thus it had no lasting effect on the show. But if the episode was recut to leave out the very relevant detail that it was a Room of Consequence adventure, I think you have the #1 most intense scene in AIO right there, and any of the Parker kids have played a bigger role now than David had at that point. I don't know about "emotionally scarring", but I don't know kids well. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that in any case it would be a very dark turn of the plot.

I wholeheartedly agree with most of what you said, although one misconception, at least for myself, is that I don't necessarily want the Parker family to disappear. I haven't given that option enough thought. What I've complained about most to my family while they patiently put up with it xD, is that while the Barclays were able to age, it seems the Parker kids are no more than three years older than when they were at their introduction. I understand that Odyssey Time is a scrambled mess, one that probably won't be unscrambled today, but I'm going to estimate more than three years have passed since album 51.

There's the whole issue of voice actors being changed almost regularly, and considering what Belle said, I wonder if that's the reason they opted to keep Matthew and Olivia in Junior High. Since the demand for voice actors does look to be growing, that explains part of it. Although, from a storytelling perspective, we've had nine years of the Parkers dealing with family squabbles, and development hardly comparable to what the Barclays. Belle's idea of setting up contracts for their actors is a smart idea, one that could possibly go about creating more benefits. There are characters that people are going to be sad to see go, and it's weird even having Mr. Parker's voice change.

The Doctor, dude, we seem to have some of the same opinions, but I don't think I'd call aio a kids' show. As much as it aims to produce wholesome, clean content, it also aims to entertain a general audience. It's a show that has worked successfully on telling stories and keeping listeners on their toes. To reduce something like this to a kid's cartoon, well, sometimes I might expect too much from the writers, but I don't want to fall into expecting too little.

_________________I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us - Romans 8:18

It’s not enough to be against something. You have to be for something better. – Tony Stark

The Doctor, dude, we seem to have some of the same opinions, but I don't think I'd call aio a kids' show. As much as it aims to produce wholesome, clean content, it also aims to entertain a general audience. It's a show that has worked successfully on telling stories and keeping listeners on their toes. To reduce something like this to a kid's cartoon, well, sometimes I might expect too much from the writers, but I don't want to fall into expecting too little.

True. But they age they aim for is for a younger audience. They I think that some of our expectations won't be met.

_________________“We all change. When you think about it, we’re all different people, all through our lives. And that’s okay, that’s good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.” - Matt Smith

Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 2:46 pmPosts: 324Location: Africa (do do do do do do do)Gender:

GJFH wrote:

I wholeheartedly agree with most of what you said, although one misconception, at least for myself, is that I don't necessarily want the Parker family to disappear. I haven't given that option enough thought. What I've complained about most to my family while they patiently put up with it xD, is that while the Barclays were able to age, it seems the Parker kids are no more than three years older than when they were at their introduction. I understand that Odyssey Time is a scrambled mess, one that probably won't be unscrambled today, but I'm going to estimate more than three years have passed since album 51.

There's the whole issue of voice actors being changed almost regularly, and considering what Belle said, I wonder if that's the reason they opted to keep Matthew and Olivia in Junior High. Since the demand for voice actors does look to be growing, that explains part of it. Although, from a storytelling perspective, we've had nine years of the Parkers dealing with family squabbles, and development hardly comparable to what the Barclays. Belle's idea of setting up contracts for their actors is a smart idea, one that could possibly go about creating more benefits. There are characters that people are going to be sad to see go, and it's weird even having Mr. Parker's voice change.

The Doctor, dude, we seem to have some of the same opinions, but I don't think I'd call aio a kids' show. As much as it aims to produce wholesome, clean content, it also aims to entertain a general audience. It's a show that has worked successfully on telling stories and keeping listeners on their toes. To reduce something like this to a kid's cartoon, well, sometimes I might expect too much from the writers, but I don't want to fall into expecting too little.

Regarding the chronology, I'm not sure that I'd draw the conclusion that it's been more than three years chronologically. Character aging is one of the major pieces of that puzzle, and all the kid aging seems to be consistent with the timeline, but if we throw out the Parkers and company, we still have at least one or two other things we can look at.

Margaret Faye was still mayor in album #50, but not by album #52, and probably not album #51 either; it seems reasonable to guess that she left office probably not long after album #50, during the hiatus period. She served two terms that we know of, starting a little after when Connie was in the process of trying to graduate (around the time she was 18). Eight years, two four-year terms, later would place Connie at being 26 years old in #51, which is consistent with her apparent age now. Spencer Hicks can be assumed to have directly succeeded Ms. Faye. He's still mayor as recently as "Swept Away" (which takes place sometime after Penny and Wooton's return in album #63). There's no reason to assume he's already served more than one term by that time, which would suggest that there could be absolutely no more than four years from sometime during the hiatus to the present, and it's not unlikely based on the rest of the world that there's less.

Tom Riley was last seen in album #50, and probably passed away shortly afterwards, during the hiatus, given that he isn't mentioned at all in album #51. In "Legacy Part 1", he's said to have passed away 'years ago', indicating it's been at least two years and probably longer than that. Given the usual length of probate, though, even with Tom's substantial assets, it's not likely it would have been more than 3-4 years since his passing -- meaning probably no more than 2-3 years since album 51, generally consistent with the aging timeline.

"Theoretically, all dramatic options are always on the table for any characters. However, between you and me, I don't think that we're very likely to have one of the Parker kids die."

(When asked if this was on or off the record.) "It's fine to mention that we're not likely to have one of the Parker kids die. I don't mind being on record as saving their lives."

So.....

_________________“We all change. When you think about it, we’re all different people, all through our lives. And that’s okay, that’s good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.” - Matt Smith

Rats. Okay if they haven't gotten rid of the Parkers by the time I start writing for Odyssey, I'll make sure to give them a good farewell.

_________________"Let me get this straight. I bet all those non-friends of yours try to embarrass you about your love for that stuff, right? So, you almost feel like you have to hide your treasures away and can only take them out in secret on rainy days when your mom goes to the store to get more liver and nobody is around to berate your sensitive spirit. Is that what you’re saying?" -Jay Smouse

Well of course. But having a character die could solve a lot of problems. Yeah, maybe it creates new ones, but it solves a lot of problems.

_________________"Let me get this straight. I bet all those non-friends of yours try to embarrass you about your love for that stuff, right? So, you almost feel like you have to hide your treasures away and can only take them out in secret on rainy days when your mom goes to the store to get more liver and nobody is around to berate your sensitive spirit. Is that what you’re saying?" -Jay Smouse

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum